October 6, 1863. |
October 26. |
Dec. 6, 1862. |
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For some time after this disastrous meddling with the slumbering but yet powerful monster guarding Charleston harbor, very few stirring events broke the monotony of camp life on Morris Island, or the tedious blockading service, excepting an occasional visit to the squadron of some prowler of the harbor on a deadly errand; the battering of Fort Sumter now and then by Gillmore's guns, to keep the garrison from doing mischief, or the sad destruction of the Weehawken in a heavy December gale.1 Gillmore continually strengthened his new position, and the Ironsides lay not far off, watching the main ship channel.
Finally, on a dark night in October,
a small vessel of cigar shape, having a heavy torpedo hanging from its bow, went silently down to blow the Ironsides into fragments.
The sum of its exploit was the explosion of the mine by the side of the vessel, making her shiver a little, and casting up a huge column of water high in air. A little later, when Gillmore was told that the Confederates were mounting guns on the southeast face of Sumter, to command Fort Wagner, he opened
upon that face of the fort his heavy rifled cannon, and speedily reduced it to ruins, making a sloping heap of rubbish from the parapet to the water.2 From that time until near the close of the year he kept up a slow and irregular fire upon the fort and Charleston, when, seeing no prospect of the passage of the squadron into the inner harbor, he kept silence.
Let us now change our field of observation from the sea-coast to the region beyond the Mississippi, a thousand miles farther westward, and see what of importance, not already considered, occurred there down to the beginning of 1864.
Our record of military events in that part of the Republic closed with the Battle of Prairie Grove, in Arkansas, early in December, 1862;3 the recapture of Galveston4 and the reoccupation of all Texas, by the Confederates, at the beginning of 1863;5 Banks's triumphant march through the interior of Louisiana to the Red River, in April and May, 1863,6 and the Battle of Helena, in July following.7
Turning to Missouri and Arkansas, in which the Unionists were the majority and the political power was held by loyal men, especially in the former State, we see those commonwealths, after brief repose, again convulsed in 1863 by the machinations of disloyal resident citizens, and the contests of hostile forces in arms.
One of the worst enemies of Missouri (the rebel Governor Jackson8) had died in exile at Little Rock,
in Arkansas, but Sterling Price, Marmaduke, Cabell, Reynolds (the former lieutenant-governor), and other rebel chiefs, were yet active and mischievous.
Early in January, 1863, Marmaduke, with about four thousand men, mostly mounted, burst suddenly out of Northern Arkansas, and fell upon Springfield, in Missouri, then fairly fortified by five earth-works, and defended
1 The Weehawken lay at anchor in the outer harbor off Morris Island when the gale came on, and, in consequence of her hatches being left open, she foundered on the 6th of December, carrying down with her thirty <*>her crew.
2 See on page 881, volume I., a picture of Fort Sumter in ruins, as it appeared from Fort Wagner, at the close of 1863.
3 See pages 585 and 536, volume II.
4 See page 594, volume II.
5 See page 595, volume II.
6 See pages from 595 to 600 inclusive, volume II
7 See page 148.
8 See page 201, volume I.
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